Our local chip shop is "CASH ONLY", he has notices everywhere written on fish & Chip wrapping paper saying "Cash is King!" and "No card payments!" never mind Jeff Bezos avoiding tax. That said, WorldPay, which most card machines in the UK use, is very expensive. Anyway. This is why I blame my local chippy for what happened.
I keep telling everyone "There'll be no more cash in twenty years!" and with that in mind, I'd been walking around for about eight or nine weeks with 70p in my pocket. This obviously meant I was unable to partake of the great British tradition of a 'Fish Supper' on a Friday night, and so I decided to bite the bullet and get some money from the cashpoint (ATM for all you Americans). Now I hate going out at lunchtime from work. The traffic around my office location is horrendous, so I thought it would be a good idea to visit the machine while walking the dog at seven o'clock in the morning. Lloyds Bank on our high street has two machines, and I went to the first one, inserted my card, entered my number, and noticed something was wrong with the display. The "Cash Only" option was very faint, almost greyed out, and I couldn't select it anyway. I cancelled the process, retrieved my card and moved to the second machine, which looked fine to me. Entered my number, selected "Cash Only", selected £50.00, and the machine duly spat my card out, then suddenly started making a warning alarm sound with flashing amber lights over the drawer that usually dispenses your money.
A fear I'm sure many people have experienced over the years suddenly possessed me.
"It's not given me any money! I bet it's taken it from my account though!"
In this modern world, with mobile banking, it's fairly easy to check your account quickly.
GREAT! Now I've got to phone the bank, contend with the voice-activated system, and jump through seventeen security procedures. After battling through the plethora of options, such as "Do you wish to know your balance?" or "Do you wish to set up a Direct Debit? Did you know you can do that in our banking app?" it finally understood my bellowing: "I WANT TO SPEAK TO SOMEONE!" to which it responded "I'm sorry, our customer service is now closed until 8 am".
I rang Santander back at just after eight and went through the interminable steps to speak to someone. They, in turn, put me through to security, of all things. They gave me a case number and said either someone would contact me later in the afternoon or the funds would be returned to my account; neither happened. The following morning, I contacted Santander again, went through all the faff you have to go through until the AI gives up and calls in a human. I gave my case number, waited while they read the notes. Waited some more while they went off to speak to someone, then said, "You must wait 48 hours, Mr Cannon." well, that's not what I was told originally! Here's the thing: what if I were poor? What if that was my benefits money and I had a baby to feed? Where was I going to find the money to replace the £50 I desperately needed? It's not right, is it?
I checked my account at 07:00 this morning, and still no refund. I resolved to wait until tomorrow (Friday) and then give them both barrels. Now, as you can imagine, I've been checking my account every couple of hours, and suddenly, at around 10:00 am, I had my refund! \o/
Part of me wanted to phone the bank to thank them, but I really couldn't face the automated systems again. I won't be using those cashpoints again, and I'll be looking for a chippy that takes card payments. 🐟🍟
My actual name is Pete. This is why I have the username dickturpin
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